The Tsarnaev family, including the suspected terrorists and their
parents, benefited from more than $100,000 in taxpayer-funded assistance
— a bonanza ranging from cash and food stamps to Section 8 housing from
2002 to 2012, the Herald has learned.

“The breadth of the
benefits the family was receiving was stunning,” said a person with
knowledge of documents handed over to a legislative committee today.

The
state has handed over more than 500 documents to the 11-member House
Post Audit and Oversight Committee, which today met for the first time
and plans to call in officials from the Department of Transitional
Assistance to testify.

Can you blame them? On one side, we have a despot supported by Iran and Hezbollah. On the other side, we have a collection of rebels aligned with Al Qaeda. We would be lucky if they all killed each other.

The poll found that 62 percent of Americans do not have a
responsibility to get involved in the tense and bloody conflict in Syria
— little change from previous findings in the CBS/NYT survey despite
the recent announcement from the Obama administration that the regime of
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad may have used chemical weapons on the
country’s civilian population.

Only 24 percent said the U.S. has a responsibility to intervene, according to the latest CBS/NYT poll.

Muslim extremists with ties to al Qaeda have been using
Massachusetts and the city of Boston as a jihadi headquarters since at
least 1993, according to a recent report by a top terrorism analyst.

At least 26 residents were found to have ties to al Qaeda, according to the report by the Henry Jackson Society.
The activity dates from before the Tsarnaev brothers, radical Muslim
immigrants to the United States, were identified as the suspects in the
Boston Marathon bombing.

Jihadist activity has taken place in Massachusetts since at least
1993 and includes in-state fundraising for terrorism, “those convicted
of planning jihad, and even those who have been killed while fighting
abroad,” according to the report by terrorism analyst Robin Simcox.

“The city [of Boston] and state of Massachusetts has a long history
of ties to AQ [al Qaeda] and AQ-inspired militancy,” the report states.

“Even prior to last week’s Boston bombing, there had been twenty six
individuals with links to Massachusetts connected to AQ [al Qaeda] and
AQ-inspired terrorism,” the report states. “Fifteen had lived in
Massachusetts, with eleven 9/11 hijackers using the Boston area as a
temporary base from which to launch their attacks.”

Several House Democrats are calling on Congress to
recognize that climate change is hurting women more than men, and could
even drive poor women to “transactional sex” for survival.

The resolution,
from Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) and a dozen other Democrats, says the
results of climate change include drought and reduced agricultural
output. It says these changes can be particularly harmful for women.

“[F]ood insecure women with limited socioeconomic resources may be
vulnerable to situations such as sex work, transactional sex, and early
marriage that put them at risk for HIV, STIs, unplanned pregnancy, and
poor reproductive health,” it says.

Climate change could also add “workload and stresses” on female
farmers, which the resolution says produce 60 to 80 percent of the food
in developing countries.

It used to be that whenever an important news story
broke, cable television viewers would quickly turn to CNN for must-see
coverage of what was happening. However, according to a poll conducted regarding the five-day coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing, that is definitely no longer the case.

The survey, which was conducted by the liberal Huffington Post
website and the international marketing agency YouGov, determined that
former titan CNN came in as far less trustworthy than Fox News over
which was the most believable cable news channel. [...]

Of course, all cable news outlets saw their viewership rise sharply
because of their coverage of the bombing and subsequent search for the
terrorists behind it.

As a result, 38 percent of the respondents said the channel was
“very” or “somewhat” believable, and 21 percent said it was “not very”
or “not at all believable.”

Also, MSNBC had no reason to smile since the poll indicated that 42
percent of the people polled “don’t watch” the channel. In addition, the
liberal channel fared poorly in the “very” or “somewhat” believable
category with 35 percent.

However, the survey brought good news for the Fox News Channel, which
had a 50 percent rating in the categories of “very” and “somewhat”
believable even though 28 percent of those polled said they don’t watch
the cable news outlet, which is far less than its competitors.

At least four career officials at the State Department
and the Central Intelligence Agency have retained lawyers or are in the
process of doing so, as they prepare to provide sensitive information
about the Benghazi attacks to Congress, Fox News has learned.
Victoria Toensing, a former Justice Department official and
Republican counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee, is now
representing one of the State Department employees. She told Fox
News her client and some of the others, who consider themselves
whistle-blowers, have been threatened by unnamed Obama administration
officials.

“I’m not talking generally, I’m talking specifically about Benghazi –
that people have been threatened,” Toensing said in an interview
Monday. “And not just the State Department. People have been threatened
at the CIA.”
Toensing declined to name her client. She also refused to say whether
the individual was on the ground in Benghazi on the night of Sept. 11,
2012, when terrorist attacks on two U.S. installations in the Libyan
city killed four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris
Stevens.[...]

“It’s frightening, and they’re doing some very despicable threats to
people,” she said. “Not ‘we’re going to kill you,’ or not ‘we’re going
to prosecute you tomorrow,’ but they’re taking career people and
making them well aware that their careers will be over [if they
cooperate with congressional investigators].”

Global warming which has been the subject of so many discussions
in recent years, may give way to global cooling. According to
scientists from the Pulkovo Observatory in St.Petersburg, solar activity
is waning, so the average yearly temperature will begin to decline as
well. Scientists from Britain and the US chime in saying that forecasts
for global cooling are far from groundless. Some experts warn that a
change in the climate may affect the ambitious projects for the
exploration of the Arctic that have been launched by many countries.

Just recently, experts said that the Arctic ice cover was
becoming thinner while journalists warned that the oncoming global
warming would make it possible to grow oranges in the north of Siberia.
Now, they say a cold spell will set in. Apparently, this will not occur
overnight, Yuri Nagovitsyn of the Pulkovo Observatory, says.

“Journalists say the entire process is very simple: once
solar activity declines, the temperature drops. But besides solar
activity, the climate is influenced by other factors, including the
lithosphere, the atmosphere, the ocean, the glaciers. The share of solar
activity in climate change is only 20%. This means that sun’s activity
could trigger certain changes whereas the actual climate changing
process takes place on the Earth”.

Solar activity follows different cycles, including an
11-year cycle, a 90-year cycle and a 200-year cycle. Yuri Nagovitsyn
comments.

Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. offered Sen. Lindsey
Graham his support for re-election — including a pledge to “rip your
skin off for you” if it helps the South Carolina Republican’s 2014
prospects.

“I told him I’ll come to South Carolina and campaign for him or
against him, whichever will help the most — I know which it’ll be,”
Biden said at an April 26 forum hosted by The McCain Institute for
International Leadership. ”I’m going down there to to the JJ next
weekend, Lindsey, and I assure you I will rip your skin off for you, and
I expect a thank-you note.”

The offhand comment points to the possibility that Graham could face a
2014 primary challenge. He’s a target of conservative Republicans for
several reasons, including his work on the Senate’s bipartisan “gang of
eight” immigration bill and his foreign policy views.

Investigators have found female DNA on at least one of
the bombs used in the Boston Marathon attacks, though they haven’t
determined whose DNA it is or whether that means a woman helped the two
suspects carry out the attacks, according to U.S. officials briefed on
the probe.

The officials familiar with the case cautioned that there could be
multiple explanations for why the DNA of someone other than the two
bombing suspects—Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his younger brother,
Dzhokhar—could have been found on remnants of the exploded devices. The
genetic material could have come, for example, from a store clerk who
handled materials used in the bombs or a stray hair that ended up in the
bomb.

On Monday, Federal Bureau of Investigation agents were seen leaving
the Rhode Island home of the parents of Katherine Russell, the widow of
Tamerlan Tsarnaev. The elder brother died after a shootout with police
four days after the April 15 bombings.

Ms. Russell has been staying with her parents since the bombings, and
FBI agents have been seen posted outside the home since her late
husband was identified as one of the bombers. Her lawyer has said she is
“doing everything she can to assist with the investigation.”

Texas senator Ted Cruz on Friday indicated that the
battle among GOP Senators over gun control was so fierce that, at seveal
points throughout the debate, some of his Republican colleagues yelled
at him “at the top of their lungs.”

“I don’t know that there is an issue that has generated more heat
internally in the Republican conference,” Cruz said at a Texas tea party
rally. “We’ve had probably five or six lunches with a bunch of
Republican senators standing up and looking at Rand [Paul] and Mike
[Lee] and me and yelling at us at the top of their lungs, I mean, really
upset. And they said ‘Look, why did you do this? As a result of what
you did, when I go home, my constituents are yelling at me that I have
to stand on principle.’ I’m really not making that up. I don’t ever
bother to argue with me, I just let them yell and say, ‘Look, you know,
vote your conscience.’”

A 10-year-old California boy was suspended and threatened
with expulsion after he brought a Swiss Army Knife on a week-long
school school camping trip.

Tony Bandermann told Fox News that his son Braden was on a science
camping trip with his class at Garden Gate Elementary School in
Cupertino, Calif.

According to a school incident report, the boy showed the small knife
to other students who then reported him to teachers. The incident
report stated that law enforcement was also notified. However, no
charges were filed.

Bandermann, who was out-of-town on a business trip, said he received a
telephone call from the school’s principal informing him that his son
had violated the school’s weapons policy. The punishment, she told him,
must be immediate and severe.

Sunday, April 28, 2013

Apparently, Israel knows a red line when it has been crossed. Barack Obama, not so much...

DAMASCUS, Syria, April 28 (UPI) -- The
Free Syrian Army says Israeli air force jets flew over President Bashar
Assad's palace and bombed a chemical weapons site near Damascus, Maariv
reported.

The report said the Israeli jets entered Syria's airspace close to 6
a.m Saturday and flew over Assad's palace in Damascus and other security
facilities before striking a chemical weapons compound near the city.

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) this week
accused the Obama administration of being influenced by members of the
Muslim Brotherhood into ignoring that the threat from radical Islam.

In an interview with the
conservative World Net Daily, Gohmert said that particularly in the
wake of the Boston Marathon bombing, “it’s very clear to everybody but
this administration that radical Islam is at war against us.”

“I’m hoping either this administration
will wake up or a new one will come in in the next election before
irreparable damage is done because radical Islam is at war with us,”
Gohmert repeated. “This administration has so many Muslim Brotherhood
members that have influence that they just are making wrong decisions
for America.”

We may not have to look far to find out who radicalized
Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his younger brother...

WASHINGTON (AP)
— Russian authorities secretly recorded a telephone conversation in
2011 in which one of the Boston bombing suspects vaguely discussed jihad
with his mother, officials said Saturday, days after the U.S.
government finally received details about the call.

In another conversation, the mother of now-dead bombing suspect
Tamerlan Tsarnaev was recorded talking to someone in southern Russia who
is under FBI investigation in an unrelated case, officials said.

The conversations are significant because, had they been revealed
earlier, they might have been enough evidence for the FBI to initiate a
more thorough investigation of the Tsarnaev family.

As it was, Russian authorities told the FBI only that they had
concerns that Tamerlan and his mother were religious extremists. With no
additional information, the FBI conducted a limited inquiry and closed
the case in June 2011.

Two years later, authorities say Tamerlan and his brother, Dzhohkar,
detonated two homemade bombs near the finish line of the Boston
Marathon, killing three and injuring more than 260. Tamerlan was killed
in a police shootout and Dzhohkar is under arrest.
In the past week, Russian authorities turned over to the United
States information it had on Tamerlan and his mother, Zubeidat
Tsarnaeva. The Tsarnaevs are ethnic Chechens who emigrated from southern
Russia to the Boston area over the past 11 years.

The YouTube channel Patriot News Organization on Thursday uploaded a training video from
the Department of Homeland Security that depicts a fake news broadcast
about a police SWAT team raiding an American house and arresting
“extremist” members of a “local militia group” for possession of illegal
firearms and planning to commit terrorist attacks.

“Very disturbing video straight from DHS website – they use it to
help train all of the deputized agencies during a crisis, even hospital
administrators, media faces, everything and everyone that would be
involved in such an event,” reads the Patriot News Organization’s
description of the video.

Exactly when the video was made is unclear, but the video description
links to a DHS website featuring documents that were uploaded in 2009
and 2012.

In the video, a fake local news anchor comes on the screen with breaking news.
“Reports of possible illegal activity by a local militia group
appears to have spurred law enforcement into action,” the anchor says.

The video then cuts to “John Gleason” at the site in front of a house
with fake fire fighters and SWAT officers swarming the area.

“This is the scene of an intensive investigation into the operations
of an extremist group reportedly planning a series of terrorist attacks
on U.S. cities,” Gleason says. “Details are sketchy, but allegedly the
militia was using this house to store a cache of military weapons.”

A Mississippi taekwondo instructor has been arrested in
connection with ricin-laced letters sent to President Barack Obama and
Senator Roger Wicker. It’s not yet clear what role authorities suspect
this man played.

“James Everett Dutschke was arrested at 1 a.m. at his home in Tupelo
Saturday and turned over to the U.S. Marshal Services without incident,
Tupelo Police Chief Tony Carleton, confirmed Saturday morning,” reports Northeast Mississippi News.
“No other information was available about the arrest or any possible charges at this time.

The New York Timesreported Friday
that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has likely enabled
massive fraud in the Pigford series of legal settlements, in which
black, Hispanic, female and Native American farmers have claimed to be
victims of past discrimination.

The cost of the settlements, which could exceed $4.4 billion, is the
result of a process that “became a runaway train, driven by racial
politics, pressure from influential members of Congress and law firms
that stand to gain more than $130 million in fees,” theTimes notes.

Among those influential members of Congress was then-Senator Barack
Obama, who made Pigford payouts a priority in exchange for political
support for his 2008 presidential campaign among a coveted group of
black voters in the rural South, the Timesreports.

Revealing Politics' Brandon Morse proves just how easy it is to register
to vote in Colorado without an ID. The Colorado legislature is in the
midst of considering a bill to pass same day voter registration, so if
Brandon had done this on election day, he would have subsequently been
given a ballot and could have voted.

You think voter fraud is insignificant? In 2008, Barack Obama probably would not have gotten on the Indiana primary ballot without voter fraud. This could have changed the election momentum to Hillary Clinton and allowed he to win the Democratic Primary. Of course, this voter fraud incident is just the tip of the iceberg that we can see.

Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz said Thursday that the
Department of Homeland Security is using roughly 1,000 rounds of
ammunition more per person than the U.S. Army, as he and other lawmakers
sharply questioned DHS officials on their “massive” bullet buys.

“It is entirely … inexplicable why the Department of Homeland
Security needs so much ammunition,” Chaffetz, R-Utah, said at a hearing.

The hearing itself was unusual, as questions about the department’s
ammunition purchases until recently had bubbled largely under the radar —
on blogs and in the occasional news article. But as the Department of
Homeland Security found itself publicly defending the purchases,
lawmakers gradually showed more interest in the issue.

Democratic Rep. John Tierney, D-Mass., at the opening of the hearing,
ridiculed the concerns as “conspiracy theories” which have “no place”
in the committee room.

But Republicans said the purchases raise “serious” questions about waste and accountability.

Chaffetz, who chairs one of the House oversight subcommittees holding
the hearing Thursday, revealed that the department currently has more
than 260 million rounds in stock. He said the department bought more
than 103 million rounds in 2012 and used 116 million that same year —
among roughly 70,000 agents

The bankrupt assets of Hostess Brands, Inc., the company
responsible for Twinkies, Ho Ho’s, Sno Balls and Ding Dongs, are being
put back to work by a buyout firm. What’s not being put back to work are
the former Hostess unionized employees.

The unionized workers had been on strike when the company folded late last year.
The company had imposed a contract that would cut its 19,000 workers’
wages — 15,000 of whom belonged to the workers from the Bakery,
Confectionery, Tobacco Workers & Grain Millers International Union
(BCTGM) — by 8 percent. (The Teamsters was Hostess’ largest union,
followed by BCTGM.) The contract would have also cut benefits by 27 to
32 percent.

Hostess filed for Chapter 11 in January 2012. In November 2012, the
company announced it would be shutting its doors for good. By that time,
it had lost about $1.1 billion, largely due to bankruptcy filings.

But last month Apollo Global Management, LLC, and Metropoulos &
Co., which owns Pabst Blue Ribbon and Vlasic pickles, bought the
83-year-old company for $410 million, renaming it Hostess Brands LLC. It
is planning to re-open four bakeries over the next two and a half
months, in Columbus, Ga.; Emporia, Kan.; Schiller Park, Ill.; and
Indianapolis. It is also contemplating a fifth in Los Angeles.

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, C. Dean
Metropoulos, the company’s chief executive, said that between now and
September, he plans to inject $60 million in capital investments into
the plants, and hopes to hire at least 1,500 workers.
But those workers won’t be unionized.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Two government officials tell The
Associated Press that U.S. intelligence agencies added the Boston
bombing suspects’ mother to a federal terrorism database about 18 months
before the attack.

Officials say this was done after Russia contacted the CIA late in
2011 with concerns that the now-dead suspect, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, and his
mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, were religious militants about to travel to
Russia. The CIA asked that Tsarnaev and Tsarnaeva be added to a
classified intelligence database called TIDE. Being on the database does
not automatically mean the U.S. suspects a person of terrorist activity
and does not automatically subject a person to surveillance, security
screening or travel restrictions.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation.

With food stamp spending in the United States
skyrocketing since the beginning of the recession, the Department of
Agriculture is paying to promote food stamp usage to illegal immigrants
for the sake of their American children, according to documents obtained
by a government watchdog.

“The promotion of the food stamp program, now known as “SNAP” (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), includes a Spanish-language flyer provided to the Mexican Embassy by the USDA with
a statement advising Mexicans in the U.S. that they do not need to
declare their immigration status in order to receive financial
assistance,” Judicial Watch announced today. “Emphasized in bold and
underlined, the statement reads, ‘You need not divulge information regarding your immigration status in seeking this benefit for your children.’”

The USDA said the program is designed to help American children.
“[The USDA Food and Nutrition Service] understands that mixed status
households may be particularly vulnerable,” FNS’ Yibo Wood wrote to
Mexican embassy officials in a January 2012 email. “Many of these
households contain a non-citizen parent and a citizen child.”

“Mr. Speaker, like a kid at a carnival, I rise in full
support of HR 527, The Responsible Helium Administration and Stewardship
Act of 2013.

Mr. Speaker, I’m relieved that and I’m sure that the American people
are relieved as well that Congress is finally going to do something
about one of the most pressing issues of the day, that is… we’ve got to
ensure access to helium for all.

Surely those harmed by sequestration and those harmed by the
Republican failure to appoint budget conferees appreciate the House
spending two full legislative days on this most critical issue. The
American people certainly understand the fact that 48 of this House’s
precious time was necessary to pass such a non-controversial bill.

I’m pleased to support this bill which shows that this Tea Party
congress will make the tough choice to keep children’s birthday parties
on schedule and give industries that rely on helium the lift that they
deserve.

Imagine, Mr. Speaker a world without balloons. How can we make sure
that the injustice of there being no helium for comedians to get that
high-pitched voice that we all hold near and dear to our hearts.

Imagine a world without balloons. Today the House
has chosen to simply float above it all. And finally we are going to do
something for the American people and we should all pat ourselves on the
back for that.

When you think about the effects of global warming
hysteria, you might think of higher electricity prices, not people being
thrown off their land and having their homes burned down. But that is
exactly what’s been happening in the East African country of Uganda,
where a British company called New Forests has been seizing land to grow
trees and then sell the so-called “carbon credits” for a profit that
could reach nearly $2 million per year. According to reports published
in the New York Times and Telegraph of London, New
Forests is backed by the World Bank and has been using armed troops,
with the government’s permission, to forcibly evict over 20,000 poor
people from their homes. This certainly gives terrible new meaning to
the concept of Green neo-colonialism.

The Patrick administration clamped down the lid yesterday on Herald requests for details of Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s government benefits, citing the dead terror mastermind’s right to privacy.

Across the board, state agencies flatly refused to provide information about the taxpayer-funded lifestyle for the 26-year-old man and his brother and accused accomplice Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19.

On EBT card status or spending, state welfare spokesman Alec Loftus would only say Tamerlan Tsarnaev, his wife and 3-year-old daughter received benefits that ended in 2012. He declined further comment.

Congressional leaders in both parties are engaged in high-level,
confidential talks about exempting lawmakers and Capitol Hill aides from
the insurance exchanges they are mandated to join as part of President
Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, sources in both parties said.

The
talks — which involve Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), House
Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), the Obama administration and other top
lawmakers — are extraordinarily sensitive, with both sides acutely aware
of the potential for political fallout from giving carve-outs from the
hugely controversial law to 535 lawmakers and thousands of their aides.
Discussions have stretched out for months, sources said.

A source close to the talks says: “Everyone has to hold hands on this and jump, or nothing is going to get done.”

Yet if Capitol Hill leaders move forward with the plan, they risk
being dubbed hypocrites by their political rivals and the American
public. By removing themselves from a key Obamacare component, lawmakers
and aides would be held to a different standard than the people who put
them in office.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: I don’t know why it is, because I’m not always partisan. But I really do have a problem with Mitch McConnell. I would like to see him get stung hard on this one. So, why do I think like that?

(LAUGHTER) (CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Because he tends to be an SOB generally? Does anybody like that guy?

Family Research Council (FRC) officials released video of
federal investigators questioning convicted domestic terrorist Floyd
Lee Corkins II, who explained that he attacked the group’s headquarters
because the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) identified them as a
“hate group” due to their traditional marriage views.

“Southern Poverty Law lists anti-gay groups,” Corkins tells
interrogators in the video, which FRC obtained from the FBI. “I found
them online, did a little research, went to the website, stuff like
that.”

The Washington Examiner’s Paul Bedard reported that Corkins, who
pleaded guilty to terrorism charges, said in court that he hoped to
“kill as many as possible and smear the Chick-Fil-A sandwiches in
victims’ faces, and kill the guard.” As Bedard explained, “the shooting
occurred after an executive with Chick-Fil-A announced his support for
traditional marriage, angering same-sex marriage proponents.”

Boston
Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev was a Jihadist. Anyone who doesn't admit that is in denial or a liar.......

EXCLUSIVE: Boston
Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev sent text messages to his mother as
early as 2011 suggesting he was willing to die for Islam, the FBI told
lawmakers this week according to two officials with knowledge of the
Capitol Hill briefing.

Tsarnaev, who was killed days after the April 15 bombing in a
shootout with police, is said to have embraced radical Islam in recent
years and recruited his younger brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, to carry out
the attack that killed three and wounded more than 180 near the finish
line of the world's most prestigious road race.

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano does
not have the authority to refuse to enforce laws that require illegal
immigrants to face deportation, according to the federal judge hearing
the Immigration and Customs Enforcement union’s lawsuit against DHS.

“The court finds that DHS does not have discretion to refuse to
initiate removal proceedings [when the law requires it],” U.S. District
Judge Reed O’Connor said today, per Business Week. O’Connor asked DHS
and the ICE union to offer additional arguments before he makes a final
ruling on the legality of President Obama’s “deferred action on
childhood arrivals” (DACA) program, which invoked prosecutorial
discretion as a means of allowing people to stay in the country if they
would have qualified for amnesty under the DREAM Act, which never passed
through Congress.

Anthony Weiner admitted in an interview Wednesday that
there might be other embarrassing photos of him out there that have yet
to surface.

In the one-on-one with RNN-TV, Weiner didn’t deny that there was a
possibility there could be other photos like the one that led the former
congressman — who is now attempting a comeback — to be disgraced, and
ultimately forced to resign in 2011.
“If reporters want to go try to find more, I can’t say that they’re
not going to be able to find another picture, or find another … person
who may want to come out on their own, but I’m not going to contribute
to that. The basics of the story are not gonna change,” Weiner told RNN-TV’s Dominic Carter.

While most voters favor citizenship for illegal
immigrants who meet certain requirements, there is widespread agreement
that new border security should come first.
In addition, more than half say we should cut the number of legal immigrants allowed into the United States.

A just-released Fox News poll finds 55 percent of voters think fewer
legal immigrants should be accepted into the U.S. That’s up from 43
percent in 2010.

Majorities of Republicans (67 percent) and independents (53 percent)
as well as a plurality of Democrats (47 percent) want to decrease legal
immigration.

Overall, 28 percent of voters say the U.S. should increase legal immigration. [...]

Border security is another aspect of this issue, and opinions are
changing. Nearly twice as many voters say border security is at the
right level today (32 percent) as said so in 2010 (18 percent).

Still, the poll finds 60 percent of voters think it is not strict
enough, and another 68 percent want new border security measures to be
completed before changes to immigration policies.

Republicans (75 percent) are more likely than Democrats (66 percent) to say new security should be done first.

Hamas recently broadcast a children’s television program
in which kids extolled the virtue of suicide attacks and expressed their
desire to blow themselves up in order to liberate Jerusalem and the
entirety of Palestine.

The al-Aqsa TV program, translated by MEMRI, featured the
grandchildren of Umm Nidal, a former Hamas MP from Gaza who celebrated
the deaths of her three sons who carried out suicide attacks against
Israelis. Umm Nidal died in March in the Gaza.
Umm Nidal’s granddaughter said she was proud of the actions of her
father — who produced the first Kassam rockets to hit southern Israel —
and wished to be a martyr for Hamas as well.

Another granddaughter launched into a rousing speech in which she
called “upon all Muslim mothers, daughters, and sisters – Al-Aqsa Mosque
expects us to be the next generation to march toward it. Do not spare
us the commanders, the soldiers, and the martyrdom-lovers.”

“The mothers send their sons to victory or to paradise, Allah willing,” she said.
The grandchildren of Umm Nidal, none of whom appeared to be above the
age of 10, then sang in chorus: “Jihad bestows pride and glory upon you
when you become a martyrdom-seeker. Oh explosive device of glory – with
her blood she created freedom. Ask [suicide bomber] Fatima Al-Najjar
how one should live a life of pride.”

House Republicans released their report on the
investigation into the Benghazi terrorist attack, having concluded that
then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was not telling the truth when
she told Congress that she wasn’t aware that officials at the U.S.
mission in Benghazi had requested extra security.

“The specific security requests pertaining to Benghazi, you know were
handled by the security professionals in the department,” Clinton told Congress in January. “I didn’t see those requests, they didn’t come to me, I didn’t approve them, I didn’t deny them.”

The House report suggests
that Clinton received a request for more security from Gene Cretz, who
preceded Christopher Stevens as ambassador to Libya.

“On April 19, 2012, the response cable from the Department of State
to Embassy Tripoli, bearing Secretary Clinton’s signature, acknowledges
Ambassador Cretz’s request for additional security but instead
articulates a plan to scale back security assets for the U.S. Mission in
Libya, including the Benghazi Mission,” the House report says.

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

WASHINGTON, April 23, 2013 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ --
On Wednesday morning, April 24 at 9am, the African American Leadership
Council will host a press conference at the National Press Club in
Washington, DC, to oppose the Senate Gang of Eight's 844-page plus,
immigration bill.

During the conference, the Council will call on the
Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), to protect black labor by opposing
amnesty and halting efforts to double legal immigration levels, as
required under the bill.

Many black leaders have recognized the harm caused by large increases in
immigration as the Senate bill entails. As the U.S. Commission on
Civil Rights recently reported, illegal immigration to the United States
in recent decades has "depress[ed] both wages and employment rates for
low-skilled American citizens, a disproportionate number of whom are
black men."

Details of the deal were not released; a statement from
Trutanich's office said they would be made available at a 2 p.m. news
conference.

Margie Carranza, 47, and her mother, Emma Hernandez, 71, were delivering newspapers in Torrance on Feb. 7 when LAPD
officers fired repeatedly on their blue Toyota Tacoma. Hernandez was
shot twice in the back, and Carranza was injured by broken glass, an
attorney for the women said.

Could the amateur boxing career of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the
deceased suspect in last week’s Boston Marathon bombings, have had a
role in the massacre? That’s a question leading brain researchers at
Boston University’s School of Medicine hope medical examiners look into
when they perform an autopsy of the 26-year-old who was killed during a
firefight with law enforcement officials early Friday morning. . . .

Media accounts have chronicled rapid behavioral changes Tsarnaev
experienced in his early 20s, and most have attributed those changes to
his renewed commitment to Islam.
Finding religion led Tsarnaev to give up boxing, alcohol, and smoking,
according to the accounts, and he also took a six-month trip to his
native Russia, posted radical videos posted on YouTube, and lost the man
who was reportedly his best friend in a grisly triple murder in 2011.
These are all plausible factors that might help explain his motives, and
they’re all worthy of investigation.

But the reasoning behind mass killings like the Marathon bombing, are
complex and often hard to understand, and the deaths of the killers
themselves during or after the attacks can leave us largely without
answers. Knowing that, it’s worth exploring every angle, including the
possibility that brain injuries and CTE may have compounded problems
Tsarnaev was already experiencing.

The Mississippi man charged with sending ricin-laced
letters to President Obama has been released, the U.S. Marshals Service
said Tuesday.

Jeff Woodfin, chief deputy with the U.S. Marshals Service in Oxford,
Miss., confirmed the release to the Associated Press but said he didn’t
know if there were any conditions on the release.

Two sources had earlier confirmed to Fox News that the FBI was
looking into the possibility that he might have been framed as part of a
grudge against him from someone in his neighborhood. A detention
hearing for Paul Kevin Curtis that was scheduled for Tuesday has also
been postponed.

The development comes after investigators said they hadn’t found any
ricin in his house. Agent Brandon Grant said that a search of Curtis’
vehicle and house in Corinth, Miss., on Friday did not turn up ricin or
ingredients for the poison. A search of Curtis’ computers has found no
evidence so far that he researched making ricin.

Through his lawyer, Curtis has denied involvement in letters sent to
Obama, Mississippi Republican Sen. Roger Wicker, and a Lee County,
Miss., judge. The letters, bearing a Memphis, Tenn., postmark, were
detected beginning April 15.

Luxury hybrid car maker Fisker Automotive has spent
$660,000 in taxpayer dollars and venture capital funds for each car it
sold — totalling $1.3 billion, according to a report. The company’s
Fisker Karma sold for about $103,000 per vehicle, meaning the company
took a hit of $557,000 every time it sold its product.

The company was also allowed to continue to draw down on a $529
million Department of Energy loan after violating the loan’s term
multiple times, according to a report by the New York-based research
firm PrivCo.

According to the report, the Department of energy knew that Fisker
was not meeting goal required to keep receiving taxpayer dollars. The
DOE cut off funding to the company in June 2011, allowing taxpayers to
lose $193 million.

Fox News analyst Bob Beckel defended his comments about
temporarily prohibiting Muslim students from entering the country
Tuesday saying it wasn’t a position he takes lightly.

“My point is not to suggest that there’s a cell of 70,000 people
here. What I’m suggesting is that those students coming from those
countries where [they] harbor resentment against the United States, if
we could save one Boston marathon event or one child’s life by saying
we’re going to take a two-year hiatus from countries that we know do not
like us and know from whence terrorism is coming,” Beckel told Fox
News’ Megyn Kelly on her show.

On Monday evening’s edition of “The Five,” which Beckel co-hosts, he
suggested “cutting off” Muslim students from coming into this country
for some time, in response to the Boston bombing.

“I think we really have to consider, that given the fact so many
people hate us, we’re going to have to cut off Muslim students from
coming to this country for some period of time so that we can at least
absorb what we got, look at what we’ve got and decide whether some of
the people here should be sent back home or sent to prison,” Beckel said
Monday.

The White House today endorsed the Marketplace Fairness Act, which
would be a tax hike for purchases made over the Internet. The White
House claims the tax would "level playing field for local retailers."

"The
Administration strongly supports S. 743, which will level the playing
field for local small business retailers that are in competition every
day with large out-of-state online companies," reads the Obama
administration's statement on the policy.

[snip]The Administration strongly supports provisions in S. 743 that would
directly address those concerns by granting only those States and
localities that have simplified their sales tax systems the option to
require all retailers, including those located out-of-state, to collect
sales and use taxes already owed under law. The Administration also is
pleased that S. 743 provides an exception for small online businesses
and requires States to make available, at no cost to retailers, software
that helps calculate the State sales tax on remote transactions, as
well as administrative services.[snip]

Barack Obama, liberals and the mainstream media are shocked. The rest of America merely acknowledges the obvious...

BOSTON (AP)
-- The 19-year-old charged with the Boston Marathon bombing, his throat
injured by a gunshot wound, wrote down answers to the questions of
investigators about his motives and connections to any terror networks.

Dzhokhar
Tsarnaev's answers led them to believe he and his brother were
motivated by a radical brand of Islam without major terror connections,
said U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they
were not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly.

But
the written communication precluded back-and-forth exchanges often
crucial to establishing key facts and meaning, said officials who
cautioned they were still trying to verify what Tsarnaev told them and
were poring over his telephone and online communications.

Monday, April 22, 2013

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad predicts that an earthquake
will hit the country’s capital of Tehran and displace its 12 million
residents. The cause of the catastrophic quake? Promiscuous women,
reports The Guardian.

“Many women who do not dress modestly ...
lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in
society, which increases earthquakes,” Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi, a
senior Iranian cleric and seismologist, was quoted by Iranian media.

The only reason the carjacking victim in the hunt for
Boston Marathon bombing suspects Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev wasn’t
killed was that he wasn’t an American, several media outlets have
reported.

The victim made those statements to police, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Specifically, the report stated: The victim told police he was forced
to drive the brothers in his Mercedes sport utility vehicle to a Shell
gas station in Watertown, Mass. During the drive, the brothers “declared
to [the victim] that they were the Boston Marathon bombers and would
not kill him because he wasn’t American,” the Wall Street Journal
reported.

The victim, who is unnamed, was carjacked at gunpoint shortly after
the killing, allegedly by the Tsarnaev brothers, of a police office at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology late Thursday evening.

Abu Ubaydah Abdullah al Adam, a senior al Qaeda leader
who serves as the intelligence chief for the terror group, is reported
to have been killed in a recent US drone strike in Pakistan’s tribal
areas. The report is unconfirmed, and al Qaeda has not issued an
official statement regarding al Adam.

Two jihadists, identified as Al Wathiq Billah and Barod, posted on
Twitter on April 20 that al Adam was killed in a US drone strike in
North Waziristan, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which
obtained the tweets. Barod “indicated he was killed that day,” according
to SITE.

The two jihadists’ claims that al Adam was killed in a drone strike
are not official confirmation that he is indeed dead. Al Qaeda has not
released an official martyrdom statement announcing his death.

WASHINGTON (USA Today)
— Four months after the shooting rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary
School, a USA TODAY Poll finds support for a new gun-control law ebbing
as prospects for passage on Capitol Hill seem to fade.

Americans are more narrowly divided on the issue than in recent
months, and backing for a bill has slipped below 50%, the poll finds. By
49%-45%, those surveyed favor Congress passing a new gun-control law.
In an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll in early April, 55% had backed a
stricter gun law, which was down from 61% in February.

The survey of 1,002 adults was taken Thursday through Sunday by
Princeton Survey Research. The margin of error is +/- 4 percentage
points.

Those who support a bill want advocates in Congress to hang tough and
not compromise — an attitude that also could complicate passing
legislation. Sixty-one percent say members of Congress “should only
agree to a stronger version of the bill, even if it might not pass.”
Just 30% say they should “accept a weaker law” they know can win
approval.

SEOUL — North Korea has moved two more missile launchers to its east
coast, where preparations are apparently under way for a missile test as
tensions simmer on the peninsula, a report said.

Expectations had
been high that Pyongyang would carry out a test to coincide with
celebrations marking the birth of North Korea's late founding leader Kim
Il-Sung on April 15 but it did not materialise.

The North Korean
military last week moved two launchers believed to be for Scud missiles
to the northeast province of South Hamgyong, Yonhap news agency said,
citing a senior Seoul official.

"We have discovered the North has
moved two additional TELs (transporter erector launchers) to the east
coast... after April 16," the official was quoted as saying, adding
Seoul and Washington were closely monitoring the site.

BTW, did Kim Jung Un ever come out of hiding? Before the Boston Marathon terrorist attack, he had been missing from public for over two weeks.

BOSTON – Law enforcement sources tell ABC News that the
Boston Marathon bombings suspect is awake and has been responding
sporadically in writing to questions. Officials say they have been
asking about other cell members and other unexploded bombs. Details on
any answers given have not been released.

A senior law enforcement official also told ABC News that FBI
negotiators tried for roughly 20 to 25 minutes to convince suspect
number two, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, to give himself up. Officials say there
was a verbal exchange between them and the suspect, and then the
19-year-old eventually fell out of the boat.

Dzhokhar sustained a gunshot wound to the neck, raising questions
over whether he will ever be able to talk again. Officials are trying to
determine if the wound to the neck was self-inflicted.

Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis says the suspect remains in
critical but stable condition, noting that he is not in a condition to
be interrogated. Until that happens, police will not know definitively
about other threats.

Davis said charges will be coming out in the near future for suspect.
ABC News’ Pierre Thomas reports that when they do come out, the terror
charges are likely to include a “weapon of mass destruction” charge
which carries a penalty of death charge.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had done well academically in high school, but The
New York Times reported that he was failing many of his courses at UMass
Dartmouth. The Times said a school transcript showed seven failing
grades over two semesters in 2012 and 2013, including Fs in Principles
of Modern Chemistry, Intro American Politics, and Chemistry and the
Environment. According to the transcript, Tsarnaev got a B in Critical
Writing and a D and D-plus in two other courses.

The UMass Dartmouth campus in the southeastern part of the state
closed early Friday morning after school officials realized the younger
of the two men authorities said were responsible for the Monday bombing
was a student there.

Of course, I could be wrong. It is entirely possible some Obama fan-boy or girl in the mainstream media has Obama's college records and just won't release them because they are damaging.